Justin K. Broadrick disbanded Godflesh in 2002 when bassist/creative partner Ben Green quit. Eight years later, the pair reunited for a few live shows, and gradually began to work on new material. A World Lit Only By Fire and its accompanying Decline & Fall EP feature Broadrick playing an eight-string guitar throughout, and some of the riffs are impossibly heavy and dense; on headphones, the opening track, “New Dark Ages,” is like having your head squeezed in a vise. Toward the end of their initial run, the group had employed human drummers, but when they came back, they reactivated the primitive, jackhammer drum machine that had propelled their classic releases and set them apart from the pack as pioneers of industrial metal. Most songs are delivered in a choked-off roar, but on “Imperator,” he employs clean, somewhat mournful vocals, and “Life Giver Life Taker” seems to honor one of their key influences: Broadrick’s voice soars skyward in imitation of Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, and his guitar riffs are a clear homage to that band’s Geordie Walker. The album ends with “Forgive Our Fathers,” a poison gas cloud of a song that recalls “Love, Hate (Slugbaiting)” from 1992’s Pure.